Storage

NV Energy to add BESS as it works to trim reliance on western energy markets

Energy Vault Holdings said that NV Energy awarded it a project to deploy a 220 MW/440MWh short-duration Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). Work is expected to start in Q2 2023 with commercial operation expected by the end of 2023.

The two-hour, grid-tied energy storage system is designed to store and dispatch excess renewable energy, including wind and solar power. The BESS will be charged and discharged on a daily basis and designed to dispatch stored renewable energy at peak consumption hours to help meet the high demand during Nevada’s peak load hours.

This is Energy Vault’s first public utility customer for our short duration energy storage solutions.

In late November, NV Energy filed with state utility regulators a plan to reduce its reliance on the open energy market and increase renewable energy capacity in Nevada.

The proposal is intended to help address the effects of heatwaves and drought on the availability of western energy resources and to shield the utility from the impacts of California regulatory changes and resource adequacy challenges that the state has experienced.

Over the past three summers, Nevada’s energy supply has been “challenged and has seen increased risk” of summer energy shortages due to increased competition for energy across the west, primarily due to energy shortfalls in California, said Doug Cannon, NV Energy president and CEO in a statement.

The plan would add Nevada-based energy generation and storage capacity to enter service in the summer of 2024 and 2025 and to make upgrades to the transmission system to accommodate more renewable energy resources.

Planned-for resources include:

  • The grid-tied battery storage system on the site of the coal-fired Valmy Generating Station, which is planned for retirement by year-end 2025.
  • 120 MW portfolio of geothermal projects from Ormat
  • 20 MW Enhanced Geothermal system from Eavor
  • 440 MW of natural gas-fired combustion peaking turbines on the site of the Silverhawk Generating Station in southern Nevada. The turbines would be capable of running on hydrogen.

Energy Vault’s BESSs have expected lives that range from 10 to 20 years. The company said it makes use of a purpose-built AC block system leveraging an innovative architecture to lower cost, improve performance, and ensure the highest level of project safety.

The company’s BESS integrates hardware components from a network of battery and power electronics manufacturers, and incorporates modular inverters in an effort to improve uptime and insulate against the potential consolidated damages of lost capacity. The battery systems use a flexible system architecture to help achieve long-term asset resiliency as grid conditions and market parameters change, as well as improved augmentation by avoiding reliance on a single manufacturer.

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